"Mary Renault - Greece 1 - The King Must Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Renault Mary)

child? Did you hear the spring?" I nodded. He ruffled my hair and smiled. "What's this? You don't fear
your grandfather, when he stirs in his sleep? Why fear Father Poseidon, who is nearer yet?" Soon I grew
to know the sounds, and listened with my courage on tiptoe, in the way of boys; till the days of silence
came to seem flat. And when a year had passed, bringing me trouble I could tell no one, I used to lean
over the hollow rock and whisper it to the god; if he answered I would be comforted.
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That year, another boy came to the sanctuary. I came and went, but he was there to stay; he had been
offered as a slave to the god, to serve the precinct all his days. His father, being wronged by some
enemy, had promised him before his birth in exchange for this man's life. He got home dragging the body
at his chariot tail, on the day Simo was born. I was there when he was dedicated, with a lock of the dead
man's hair bound round his wrist.

Next day I took him round the sanctuary to show him what to do. He was so much bigger than I, I
wondered they had not sent him sooner. He did not like learning from a smaller boy, and made light of all
I told him; he was not a Troizenian, but came from up the coast near Epidauros. As I saw more of him I
liked him less. By his own story, there was nothing he could not do. He was thick and red, and if he
caught a bird would pluck it alive and make it run about bare. I said he should let them be, or Apollo
would be after him with an arrow, because birds bring his omens. But he said sneering that I was too
squeamish to make a warrior. I hated even his smell.

One day in the grove, he said, "Who is your father, towhead?"

With a bold front and sinking belly, I answered, "Poseidon. That's why I am here." He laughed, and
made a rude sign with his fingers. "Who told you that? Your mother?"

It was like a black wave breaking over me. No one had ever said it openly. I was a spoiled child still;
nothing much worse had come my way than justice from those who loved me. He said, "Son of
Poseidon, a little runt like you! Don't you know the gods' sons are a head taller than other men?"

I was shaking all over, being too young to hide my heart. I had felt safe from this, in the sacred precinct
"So shall I be tall, as tall as Herakles, when I'm a man. Everyone has to grow, and I shan't be nine till
spring."

He gave me a push that tumbled me over backwards. After a year in the holy place, I gasped at the
impiety. He thought it was him I was afraid of. "Eight and a half!" he said, pointing his blunt finger. "Here I
am not turned eight, and big enough to push you down. Run away home, little bastard! Ask Mother for a
better tale."

There was a bursting in my head. What I next remember is hearing him yell in my ear. My legs were
knotted round him, and I had both fists full of his hair, trying to crack his head upon the ground. When he
put up an arm to beat me away, I sank my teeth in it and held fast.

The priests got me off him by prizing my jaws with a stick.

When we had been scrubbed and beaten, we were brought to beg the god's pardon, burning our suppers
before him to purge our impiety. At the moment of the sacrifice, the throat of the spring gave a great